On May 14, 1958 the Disneyland TV program ran an episode called "Magic Highway, U.S.A." It examined the past, present and (paleo)future of transportation. The 2719 Hyperion blog has a great breakdown of the episode.

Below is a short clip of the episode as well as some paleo-futuristic still images. Many thanks to Paul at Waltopia for the video.

As father chooses the route in advance on a push-button selector, electronics take over complete control. Progress can be accurately checked on a synchronized scanning map. With no driving responsibility, the family relaxes together. En route business conferences are conducted by television.

I really wish that Disney would release this as part of their Walt Disney Treasures collection. (Maybe an entire DVD devoted to Disney paleo-futurism?) Better yet, they could offer every Disneyland program on iTunes or use an advertising-based model. I know that Disney likes to make their offerings scarce through limited release DVDs, but the free flow of information just breeds piracy if "legitimate" copies aren't made available.

Another is that all this technological and leisurely living is all based on centrally planned infrastructure-- communications, highways and roads, all planned communities and housing, etc.

Is this "centrally planned life" meme something that snuck in from the USSR? Or is it just a response to the boom in suburban building, affordability of technology, building of the interstate highways etc. of the 50s?

What's left? The car that splits itself into two units. However, some of the future is already partially dead past. The way the travel route was planned is already obsolete. And why commute to the office at all?

Paleo-Futures never seem to have any nonwhite people or impoverished areas of the country, I've noticed.

The central planning theme reflects the social-democratic era in American history from the New Deal through the 1970's, when the Federal Government had more of a hand in building and maintaining the country than we've seen since the Reagan Administration. New Orleans in a typical Paleo-Future would probably have much more massive infrastructure built by the Army Corps of Engineers to keep water at bay, for example, along with an unexplained absence of impoverished blacks.

Part of the preoccupation with central planning was also Walt Disney's personal vision. He was the ultimate mid-C20 technocrat, with the theme parks and (in its original conception) EPCOT-as-planned-city developing out of that.

I got to see this a couple of years ago on the Disney Channel, when they still showed old Disney programs from the early Disney years. I always loved the ironic sense of futurism shown in the video. I also liked how the suburbs of tomorrow all have "The Monsanto" house that was displayed at Disneyland for several years. This would later be revistied in an episode of Buzz Lightyear, where Buzz is confined to his house in a suburb with these same dwellings.